Beloved
by valleyforge
Summary: A collection of short scenes in which Crais encounters his father.
1. Default Chapter

Recently on the Cohorts' board we challenged ourselves to write short scenes that depicted an encounter between Crais and his father. I wrote four: Beloved, Harvest, What Goes Around and When Life Gives You Zucca. Each story is posted here as an individual chapter. Thanks for reading! I appreciate your feedback on the different scenarios.  
  
  
  
Beloved  
  
The smell of heliotrope and the distant red cliffs were all that remained of his recollection of this place. The rectangular parcels of dirt that his father and the other men turned with their wooden harrows had long since yielded to endless waves of sweet grass speckled with flocks of graylag.   
  
It was a thousand cycles ago, and it was only yesterday. Words would make absolutely no difference now; still, he had waited a lifetime to say them and he would not be denied. Since his arrival a weeken ago he anticipated this moment, prepared himself for it. Staring in the general direction of where his ancestral home once stood, he began to speak, surprised by the casual tenor of his voice.   
  
"Did you think you would continue your life as though nothing had happened?"  
  
He glanced over his shoulder and quickly forward again, a slight shake of his head in commentary. "Did you honestly believe that a man could have his very heart ripped from his chest and still live?"  
  
"Well...did you?" he shouted.  
  
He clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists and squeezed them to his eyes as though that alone could block the image of that day from revealing itself. At length, the anger spent, his arms dropped limply to his side. He turned with ragged breath to admonish him.   
  
"You should have fought for us. It was your duty. Your responsibility."  
  
Grief had proven itself an unpredictable animal, not always content to lie hidden in the dark recesses of a man's soul as the cycles passed, gnawing at his guts until the pain drove him mad. No. Some men it swallowed whole.   
  
Bialar Crais approached the grey stone monolith and retrieved his waistcoat from atop it. His fingertips followed each line of the name etched into the chipped, discolored granite as he regarded the simple inscription below.   
  
Beloved Husband and Father. 


	2. Harvest

Harvest  
  
The admission report showed that Roewan Crais' ailing wife brought him to the facility seven cycles earlier. Since her death a cycle later there was no record of any inquiries or visitors. Patient data stores indicated he had no other living relatives.  
  
"Mostly he just sits and stares," Jahdo, the Luxan attendant said as they advanced through a labyrinth of corridors. Every third stride a small window allowed a glimpse inside another of the square cubicles the staff referred to as resident quarters, soundproofed to hide the screams, ventilated to eliminate the smell.  
  
"What was his diagnosis?" Bialar Crais asked.  
  
"Stementia. It bears some similarity to the Living Death, but it's not temperature induced. The symptoms come on slowly and take cycles to develop. Probably initiated by a trauma when he was younger. By the time he got here he was pretty much a veg..."  
  
Something dark splattered across the window alongside them. Inside the cubicle, fists pounded at the glass, smearing what Crais guessed was fecal matter across it. The attendant swore under his breath as he slapped his comm badge. "We need a hose down in 407." He hurried Crais along as heavy footsteps closed quickly behind them. "That one's always causing trouble."   
  
Jahdo stopped and swiped his ident card through a scan lock. "Here he is. He does talk on occasion, but doesn't make any sense. You want me to wait here while you visit your...what did you say he was to you?"   
  
"An acquaintance of my father. Thank you, but I'll be fine alone."  
  
"Activate your badge when you're ready."  
  
The moment the door clicked shut the walls closed in as though to suffocate him. His *quarters* consisted of a narrow ledge the length of one wall on which to sleep and a chair bolted to the floor with a dropdown tray for meals. In the opposite corner a shower nozzle protruded from above the commode. It came on for exactly fifty microts every day, no more, no less. A single recessed coil in the middle of the ceiling provided the only light, twelve arns on, twelve arns off. The floor slanted inward to a circular drain in the center of the room.  
  
The old man remained seated, his face toward the wall. Crais approached and rested a hesitant hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Father?"  
  
He sat down on the ledge and gazed mutely at the twisted face in front of him, barely discernable through unkempt white hair and a full beard.   
  
"Father, I wanted you to know that..."  
  
The old man's head snapped around, eyes bulging. "You're too late," he shouted.  
  
"But I only just found-"  
  
"They already took everything I ever had. You'll just have to kill me this time, 'cause I got nothing left for you vultures to steal."  
  
"Father, it's Bialar...your son."  
  
"You stole my life from me. What more do you want?"  
  
He gripped the old man by the shoulders and forced him to face him. "I am *not* a Peacekeeper. I am your son. Father, please...I am your son, Bialar."   
  
"Bialar?"  
  
"Yes, yes...that's right. Bialar."   
  
"We've got to get them off the vine today, son. One day too late and we lose maybe twenty, thirty percent at market."  
  
"I remember," Crais said.  
  
"No...no, don't wake your brother. He's too young. Come along, son." The old man looked straight at him. "It's going to be a long day, boy. I'm counting on you."  
  
He looked into his father's vacant eyes and nodded. "Yes, Father. You can count on me."   
  
Gently, he cupped the sunken, sallow face in his hands and whispered to him, "We never forgot. We were always your sons. They could not take that from us." His own hands trembling, he gathered the old man's curled, skeletal fingers and gave them a light squeeze, without response.  
  
After an arn, or maybe two, he activated the comm. 


	3. What Goes Around

What Goes Around  
  
As he had done the past four days in a row, the object of Bialar Crais' scrutiny arrived two arns before sunset, his cart laden with bushels of tangeleros. Two children, a girl of perhaps twelve cycles and a boy slightly younger, followed dutifully behind. After bartering the fruit for credits, he went directly to the hostelry where he would stay until nightfall while the children waited outside with the cart.   
  
Any uncertainty Crais harbored vanished with the fleeting daylight. He crossed the street and came to one knee in front of the children. The girl instinctively raised an arm to keep her younger brother safely behind her. Strangers were uncommon here and always suspect.  
  
"What is your name?" he asked.  
  
"Li'leeah."  
  
"Named for your mother."  
  
The child, uncertain if he intended it as a question or statement, nodded.  
  
"Have you anything to eat or drink?" he asked.  
  
Without breaking eye contact, she patted a canteen tied around her waist by a length of twine.   
  
The sash of his turban concealed a mirthless smile. He removed a biscuit from his pocket and offered it to her. Her wide dark eyes surveyed the stranger, the biscuit and the door to the hostelry in quick succession. The boy hastily reached across her arm to take it.  
  
"You there! What the hezmana do you think you're doing?"  
  
The voice was exactly as he remembered it. The features were withered and shrunken with age, but recognizable.  
  
"I have a business proposition. Is there a place we can speak privately?" Crais pulled back his long coat to reveal a plump money pouch attached to his belt.  
  
The elder Sebacean's brow peaked with interest. He motioned with his head toward the alleyway.  
  
Crais followed him between buildings to the rear exit of the hostelry. A single illumination rod above the porch shed light on things best left unseen as countless creatures scurried or slithered from view at the men's footsteps. The stench of urine and garbage made him thankful for the band of cloth stretched across his nose.   
  
"What's your business here?" the old man asked without introduction.  
  
No unnecessary words or pleasantries. He had not changed at all. "My wife is barren and it is our desire to have a family. I was told that twice in the past you accepted compensation..."  
  
Eyes narrowed, his head listed to one side in thought. "It's true...a man can have too many mouths to feed in lean years."   
  
Crais reached for the money pouch and waggled it, allowing the coins to seduce him with their music.   
  
"These are the last two. That old woman of mine will raise hezmana with me if I come home without either of them. That there're no Peacekeepers in these parts now to explain their disappearance complicates matters. Besides, I'm not getting any younger...I've got fields to sow."  
  
"There's enough here that working the fields should no longer be an issue." Crais tossed the bag over and waited while the old man hastily opened and examined the contents. He nodded.  
  
"These are the conditions. They don't come back...ever. If you have a problem with either one of them, you handle it somewhere else, not here. Is that understood?"  
  
"How do I know they will not try to return to you on their own?"  
  
"'Cause I'll tell 'em, that's why. You want the deal or don't you?"  
  
Crais extended his hand. "Agreed."  
  
"Done."   
  
The old man grinned and shook on it, but his joy and prosperity were short lived. Instead of releasing his hand, Crais tightened his grip and yanked him forward, his free hand pulling aside the sash to reveal his face.   
  
"Who are you?" he growled, powerless against the younger, stronger man.   
  
Crais gripped his chin and forced him to take a closer look. "You don't recognize me, do you...Father?"  
  
The word coincided with the snap of his neck.  
  
* * *  
  
The stranger told me that there had been an accident and Father would not be coming home. He concealed the money pouch in the back of our cart, covering it with straw and an empty bushel, saying we should give it to Mother.   
  
Neither of us asked what happened, but Chulo did inquire whether he had another biscuit in his pocket.  
  
I assured him that we could find our way home safely in the dark and smacked the pony into a trot. When I turned back to glimpse him he had already gone. 


	4. When Life Gives You Zucca

When Life Gives You Zucca  
  
It was a mistake to have come here.  
  
The shred of hope they clung to for their youngest son died when Bialar Crais showed up at their doorstep. For the past two arns his mother's tears vacillated from joy one moment to despair the next. He should have left them their dreams.  
  
Even now as they sat at the table for their first meal together in over fifty cycles the empty chair across from him served as a constant reminder of his failure. Every time he glanced up, he caught his mother staring at him from the kitchen as though he'd disappear if she took her eyes away. Quite the opposite, his father avoided his gaze. It was hard to judge which was the more painful, the lengthy pauses in the conversation between them, or the conversation itself.   
  
"I suppose you have traveled a great deal."  
  
"Yes...extensively." To hell and back if the truth be known.  
  
"Did you do much fighting?"   
  
Mother cast him a harsh look from the kitchen. "Bialar did not come home to talk about fighting."   
  
He shrugged. "I was a soldier. It was expected."  
  
Father nodded. He massaged his chin between his thumb and forefinger, the silence stretching uncomfortably. "Do you blame me?" he finally asked.  
  
The son's expression was question enough.  
  
This time Father did not look away. "For letting them take you."   
  
"You had no choice. They would have killed you both if you'd resisted and then taken us anyway."  
  
A lifetime of guilt...absolved in a single microt. The elder Crais' shoulders straightened a bit.   
  
"Do *you* blame me?" Bialar asked, his eyes fixed on the vacant space across the table from him.  
  
"You say he grew to be a fine man?"  
  
A quick nod. "He did. He was not afflicted with my...ambition."  
  
Father laughed briefly. "My Tauvo never had to get stitches to find out that a baby speckled snake had teeth, or scar his hand to know that a laser torch was hot. No...he was quite content to let you find out for him." His brow suddenly creased. "Tell me, did the two of you remain friends?"  
  
"Always."  
  
"Your younger sisters will be eager to meet you," Mother called from the kitchen.  
  
"Three, you say?"  
  
His father snorted. "Living in a house with four women, it's a wonder I kept my sanity at all."  
  
A scoop of zucca splattered onto his plate. "My hearing is still good, old man." She served her son a substantial helping of the stringy boiled gourd with less velocity.   
  
Father's back snapped straight, his voice amplified. "What's wrong with you, old woman? You know the boy doesn't like zucca. He never has." For the first time the old man's eyes sought his, the dark twinkle and the wink he remembered so vividly, there again.  
  
With a contented smile, Bialar Crais scraped the odious vegetable to the edge of his plate.  
  
It felt good to be home. 


End file.
